


</shaw>

by aceraccoon



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Lots of Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 20:39:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5554478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceraccoon/pseuds/aceraccoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Root thinks that emptiness would be so much easier than this torment of the soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	</shaw>

Root wakes up with hair plastered to her cheeks and bleary eyes still reddened from the hours she had spent sobbing into her mattress. The sheets are stained with blood and dirt, Root not having bothered to take off her shoes, too distraught to even remember she was wearing any.

There's tear tracks down her face and she wishes that option had been another the machine discounted. She wishes that Shaw were here because then Root could find out if the real Shaw would love her (maybe someday). Root doesn't understand why she was shown that possibility. It's far better than the reality she has now.

It all happened so fast, though. Logically, Root knows it's always too fast, too sudden, too soon. When somebody you love --

No, she wasn't dead. But she might be. After all, hadn't Root heard the shot? Hadn't she seen Shaw's head loll to the side as she faded out of consciousness? Shaw had looked so small, and though Root hadn't been able to touch her or kiss her goodbye, she suspected her body would have been cold.

That is what terrifies Root. It's the reason she heard somebody screaming in agony only to realize she was the one tearing her vocal chords to shreds, wailing and unable to do anything but sink to the floor, shaking and crying 'no, no, no, this wasn't supposed to happen' and thinking 'it should have been me'. 

Because she was shown that possibility. It could have been her and Shaw could be safe in police custody [though Root knows Shaw would have made her way put eventually] and Shaw wouldn't feel as much pain as Root does. 

Root rises from the bed and, numbly, strips off her boots. She peels her clothes off her and finds that it hurts; the clothes had grafted to her skin with sweat and blood. Root walks to the shower and turns on the water. It's cold but she can't bring herself to care about that now. She washes up and it feels like no time has passed but it feels like an eternity at the same time.

She still thinks it should have been her. Then, at least, she wouldn't feel like this. Losing someone [even though it's not permanently because she knows Shaw is alive, she has to be] is supposed to feel like emptiness. Root thinks that's a gross inaccuracy. It feels like somebody's ripped out her heart and torn it to shreds. It feels like she's suffocating. It feels like she's being crushed and pulled apart all at once. 

It feels like she's been broken and for the upteenth time Root wishes that she were a sociopath. She wishes she didn't care, except she doesn't because loving Shaw was -- is one of the greatest feelings and Root doesn't know how she'd live without having experienced it. Then again, what she feels right now is so much worse than that emptiness could ever be. 

And that's when Root realizes she's still in the shower and the water has gone from freezing to scalding. She's been shaking and gasping and her throat is raw from the force of her wails. Her body aches from physical exertion and stings from what she suspects are becoming first degree burns from the water that's been pouring over her as she sat slumped on the tile floor.

When Root comes back to her senses, she's exhausted and her eyes hurt from overexposure to salt. She crawls out of the shower and wraps herself in a towel. She suspects this is what people mean when they say they feel numb. Root can't cry anymore; the sadness had become a constant and there's not much Root can feel.

Root drags herself out of the bathroom and slips on black jeans and a navy blue shirt. She wanders over to her bed and after a few seconds deliberation, slips back on the boots that she thinks could have some trace of Shaw's blood on them. 

Root steps out of the apartment the machine found for her, heading towards the old subway car. If anybody could find Shaw, Harold could. Root. The machine had failed Shaw. And she hadn't even tried to help Root find her. She shouldn’t even give Root an answer of no.

When Root finally arrives at the car, Harold is poised over the counter, staring at a number. He's staring at a number that's not Shaw's and he doesn't have any other things open on the computer. Root can only come to one conclusion: Harold hasn't been trying. Root sees Shaw's leather jacket on the chair next to him and comes to her next conclusion: Harold thinks Shaw is dead. 

Root storms over and snatches the jacket from the chair, angry tears steaming from her eyes and she burrows her face into the soft leather. 

She hears a "Ms. Groves" and some kind of reassurance but continues to cry into the jacket, wracked by sobs and constricted by an unimaginable tightness in her chest. 

"You actually think--"  is all Root manages to get out before she chokes up again Harold says something about saving others and this makes Root angrier than she thinks she's ever been in her whole life. She shrugs off his hand, placed consoling on her shoulder, and runs out of the station, coat in hand. 

As she walks down the street, she looks at the cameras and begs "please" at each one. Eventually, she hears a payphone ring and runs to it only to hear "Stopwatch. Trifle. Octagon. Panama." [stop] and places the phone back on its hanger, angry and disappointed.

That's why Root decides that Shaw has to be alive. If she were dead, the machine would surely tell her. But Shaw is alive and in danger and the machine doesn't want her to look. Root carjacks a nearby minivan and sets off to the last place she saw Shaw. She won't rest until she's found her. [she can't be dead]

**Author's Note:**

> thankyou to @praytothegay for betaing!


End file.
